


Situation Normal

by dramatispersonae



Category: RWBY
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alcohol, Canon Disabled Character, Canon compliant as far as we know so far, Canon-Typical Physically Impossible Bullshit Anime Combat, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-typical levels of poor decision-making, Competence Kink, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, In Vino Veritas sort of, Kidnapping, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Pre-Canon, References to PTSD, in a little thing i like to call MinMax Stats Sexy, meets Morosexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:48:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21741229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramatispersonae/pseuds/dramatispersonae
Summary: The mission wassupposedto be over, but James can't catch a break.
Relationships: James Ironwood/Ozpin
Comments: 3
Kudos: 47





	Situation Normal

**Author's Note:**

> praise and gratitude to [aromantic-eight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rbmifan/pseuds/aromantic-eight) for beta reading, editing, suggestions, and being a cool friend in general. please enjoy James Ironwood Just Wanted To Have A Nice Relaxing Night For Once.

James really needs to work on the idea that things are bound to be easier outside of Solitas.

Hunting is hard everywhere, of course. _Of course_ he knows that. Grimm are Grimm, and criminals are criminals. They can turn any environment to their advantage. It's just that Solitas is… not worse, maybe, but...

Actually. It's worse.

The wilds are objectively worse, and the kingdom itself isn't much better. People are jammed together by the sharp, nonnegotiable drop on Atlas and the elements in Mantle. They pile on top of each other in ways that leave them vulnerable to attack, but more than that, vulnerable to each other. Tensions run higher and higher and getting some time alone to cool off is nearly impossible, unless you'd like to head out into the tundra and _really_ cool off. There's always countless short fuses just this close to lighting, powder kegs of economic tension and racial tension and just plain personal tension. And of course, once they go off… there's Grimm.

So yes. Solitas has challenges the way the other continents, the other kingdoms, don't. Most of James' stress when he travels is concern about what could happen in his absence. He doesn't ever anticipate much in the way of problems where he _actually_ is.

He should stop doing that. Start doing that. Stop failing to anticipate problems, start anticipating them.

The point is.

The point is.

He is a little bit drunk.

He didn't think that he would need to be sober! He and Ozpin had just finished a mission, something they picked up to blow off steam from all the politics and planning involved in combining a secret war with being increasingly in the public eye, and he was entitled to another sort of unwinding. Or so he'd thought. Really, this just goes to show that unwinding is a scam. He's never going to do this again. He wishes he could _undo_ this, because while he has utter faith in his ability to be as deadly as this situation requires, it would be easier if he was not drunk.

But this is how it's going to have to be.

Because problems happen outside of Solitas, and sometimes those problems are caused by people who waylay Ozpin and set an incredibly obvious trap that James is going to have to walk right into. He'll try to get around the trap, of course, but that doesn't change the fact that he is headed in a direction he knows contains a trap without entirely knowing where that trap is. So he could be avoiding it, or in trying to avoid it he could walk right into it.

There's only one way to find out that doesn't involve extensive beforehand surveillance and spy networks, so, having access to relevant forms of neither, James can only move forward.

The thing that would ordinarily be a comfort about this situation has become, inversely, a great source of concern. Trying to kidnap Ozpin is a suicidally bad idea. But whoever took him was confident enough to try and, to all appearances, was justified in that confidence. Because rather than waking up to Ozpin returning to their shared room at the inn with a funny story about an attempted abduction, James woke up to breaking glass and the thump of a dart hitting the wall. Attached to the end of the dart was a scrap of Ozpin's scarf. It was followed by a second dart, carrying a map with a marked out path. Further inspection reveals that the scrap is bloodstained.

James is still slightly drunk. He is also very, very fast.

In his gear, combat-ready, he follows the map as best he can in the dark in an unfamiliar nowhere town outside of Vale. Traveling outside of Atlas lets him get a better understanding of the other kingdoms, their concerns, their needs and weaknesses, strengths, and martial capability. It also surrounds him with very different terrain that he doesn't have much experience with navigating quietly, in the dark, or drunk.

There's a part of him insisting that quiet is less important than speed. That it is better to go in like a tank: loud, undeterred by any barrier, and already shooting the hell out of everything. But this is a situation where knowledge of enemy positions and the advantage of surprise could be deciding factors, and like hell will he hand those over easily. Bad enough that he has to vaguely follow the path marked out for him, lacking the knowledge that would allow him to confidently take another route to the indicated destination.

The air is cold, but mostly because it's damp. It's been slowly drizzling rain for the past few days. James is no stranger to the cold, and the rain has left the fallen leaves beneath his boots soggy rather than crisp, silencing his footfalls rather than accompanying them with crunches. It is, all told, not the worst weather for the situation.

But stealth benefits don't erase discomfort. The wet chill works fingers underneath his collar and sleeves, slicking his skin like frigid, paradoxical sweat. It's not cold enough for his eyelashes to freeze together, but it is cold enough that he can feel his ears slowly going numb. The occasional bursts of wind don't help.

James has the benefit of warm clothes and a body accustomed to Atlesian temperatures, in addition to the fact that he's generating heat through motion. He has a feeling Ozpin isn’t nearly so lucky right now. Does he even still have his scarf, or was it taken from him and never given back?

James has a jacket. He will give Ozpin the jacket, when he finds him. And then they will go back to town, and James can start a fire in the room. It's definitely not cold enough for frostbite, so that will be enough.

James will find Ozpin soon.

He _has_ to.

James doesn't know how long he's been walking for. The moon has definitely changed positions, but the canopy is thick enough that he's not sure by how much, and he wouldn't be able to tell time by it anyway. All he knows is that the angles he needs to use to get enough light to read the map are different. He slashes marks into the trees he passes with a pocketknife when he remembers to do it so he'll know the route he took, but the gaps between remembering stretch out enough he doesn't know how helpful that will actually be.

There's a noise ahead, the pop of wood under pressure, and James immediately ducks behind the closest tree wide enough to hide his whole body. He counts to three, then moves just enough to peer around his cover.

There's a person only a few meters away, and the mismatched armor and a weapon more suited to targeting humans than Grimm says 'bandit.' Of course. The movement patterns of the Grimm he and Ozpin had hunted had indicated they were following something, and James now has a pretty good idea of what that might have been.

The bandit stretches, body loose and apparently unconcerned, and kicks disinterestedly at something on the ground before glancing furtively to one side and bending down to check on it. James catches the faint glint of light off of a thin wire as they do so. 

Tripwire. For what, James doesn’t know. The wire is set along the path that James has very carefully not been following, so it could be intended for just any traveller. This close to his destination, though, James isn’t sure. He keeps very still and watches. 

Apparently satisfied with the tripwire, the bandit straightens up again and gives a deep sigh. “Fucking Huntsmen,” they mutter. “S’too cold for this shit.”

There’s a trick common enough that most students are warned about it before they go out in the field unsupervised. Bandits know full well that Grimm are never far away from them when raiding, and it’s not unheard of for them to take advantage of that if they want to reduce the number of Hunters around. Bait the Hunters with Grimm, then get them where you want them by kidnapping one of their own after they show up. But that usually happens with more inexperienced Hunters, in areas where you're more likely to encounter ten freshly-graduated try-hards than two… somewhat more experienced and skilled Hunters who nonetheless look young enough to be reasonable targets.

Well.

He could almost laugh. Ozpin — powerful, paranoid, overcautious Ozpin, whose face is plastered across billboards and cereal boxes from one end of Vale to the other — brought low by some run of the mill bandits. It’s unbelievable and, if he’s being honest, a little… unsettling.  
James would like more information, but he can't afford the risks of acquiring it. Better to reconstruct the pieces after he's done whatever is necessary to get Ozpin back.

He shoots the bandit. They collapse in the leaves. It would have been a soundless kill, if not for the fact that shooting things makes noise. A fact that James remembers slightly too late. 

Gunfire crashes into the trees at his right, and James leaps into action on reflex, sprinting away almost before he even registers what's happening. A branch ahead of him splinters and drops, and he dodges sharply, scanning for the direction of fire and appropriate cover. This would be easier if the trees were thicker. He's too far from his first tree to go back, but he spots a truncated rotten log, barely tall enough but seemingly thick enough to provide protection that will let him conserve some Aura. He whirls behind it, spitting curses.

There's a brief quiet, and James risks a glance over the log, ducking down a half-second before fire starts up again. It seems to just be one other person so far, and if James doesn't want it to become more as people get attracted by the sound of bullets ripping through soggy wood like wet paper bags, then he's going to have to do something, quick.

He lines up the shot.

It's quick.

James stands. The fact that he only wobbles a little is more due to magnificent prosthetic engineering than sobriety. Moving fast and turning sharply made his head spin in a way it wouldn't have if he had a normal sense of where his body is in space. He doesn't.

And his blunted sense of where his is in space isn't just manifesting as dizziness, James realizes with trepidation. He isn't totally sure which direction he came from. The gunfire hadn't been head-on, so he can't follow the trajectory of the bullets, and he can't quite remember the distance he covered or the angle he took to get behind the log.

"Mother _fu-_ "

Something not far in the distance explodes. Violently. It's followed by several more explosions, and the grating rumble of a lot of rocks moving very suddenly.

_Ozpin._

James doesn't hesitate to run in that direction. He spots the body of the first bandit just soon enough to angle his course sharply away from whatever they had been checking, then continues on, hoping that was the only trap that had been placed before whatever big trap was waiting at the end of the path laid out on the map. The explosion sounded close enough, maybe…

He doesn't even try to block or dodge the few low tree branches blocking his path, he just plows through and lets his Aura take them out. If James was being smart, he wouldn't do that. He wouldn't let his Aura wear down on something so easily avoided. But he has finally allowed speed to become his greatest priority. There aren't many branches, and there are less and less the further he gets and the more the trees begin to thin out.

The ground dips abruptly, and James slides down an angled, rocky slope into the mouth of what might once have been a ravine. It’d be a decent enough place for an ambush, relatively narrow and high-walled, except the narrow bit only lasts a few steps before it runs into the shallow curve of a new crater.

In the middle of the crater, the remains of what James assumes were metal restraints drip off Ozpin's wrists, glowing faintly green. There's a brighter glow around his eyes. Other colors are hard to make out, light and shadow stark and strange in the eerie blaze of magic. The entire crater sparks with it. But it's light enough to see that amid the broken earth there are heaps of debris that used to be structures of wood and canvas. Or that used to be human.

James takes a few cautious steps forward, trying to evenly divide his attention between watching where he's putting his feet and assessing Ozpin for obvious injuries. James can't be completely sure, but from what he can see, very little of the blood on Ozpin seems to be his. The only blood that's clearly Ozpin's is the dramatic trail over most of the lower half of his face - a nosebleed. A sizeable one, but not a life-threatening wound by any means.

Ozpin sways, then props himself up more firmly with his cane. He seems to see James for the first time then, despite the fact that James has been in Ozpin's line of sight at least since he reached the edge of the crater. "James?" he calls uncertainly, as if he's not sure that anyone is actually there.

Fuck. James hopes Oz isn't having a flashback. He glances at the crater and the crackling magic still dancing around Oz’s body, and automatically starts calculating possible responses even as he holsters his guns and makes his hands clearly visible. Ozpin’s rare flashbacks during or after combat are always a particular kind of hell. They’re always hell for Ozpin, but give him a weapon, terrified dissociation, and a panicked hair-trigger, and things could get touch-and-go very fast.

"I'm here, Ozpin," James responds, ready to run towards or away from Ozpin as the situation requires. Towards, it turns out, since Ozpin's legs fold and he falls into a graceless slump. James rushes forwards, prepared to intercept Ozpin's head to prevent a concussion if he fully collapses, but Ozpin manages to stay sitting up. He blinks, and the light around his eyes begins to fade slowly.

"What happened?" James asks, crouching beside him. "Where are you hurt?"

Ozpin raises a hand to his nose, but stops before his fingers can touch his face, wincing. "I think… I was walking back to the inn, and then I was here. I think I fell. My nose was broken when I woke up."

James wonders if there are any survivors who weren't smart enough to run away. He has some words he'd like to share with them. "Is it still broken?" he asks, because even in the quivering, indistinct firelight of burning debris Ozpin's nose clearly isn't quite the right shape. And his voice has the characteristic thickness of someone trying to talk with a swollen face. If it's not healing, that implies competing factors that are demanding more Aura. James would guess powering the explosion, but...

"Maybe?" Ozpin says. "Better than it was, but I…" his hand shakes, and his arm drops. "Oh dear." He doesn't fall so much as he seems to abruptly have fewer bones, limp and unable to maintain a rigid pose. James catches him. Ozpin's scarf is still wrapped loosely around his neck, but he's been stripped of his jacket and sweater and left with a short-sleeved undershirt. His bare arms feel warm.

Ozpin looks up, and James can see in the slight remaining glow of magic that his pupils are enormous. "Hello," he says, and smiles. "Did you come to save me?"

"Did you need it?" James asks, raising an eyebrow. It's not a real question - Ozpin isn't in any state to get through woods that may or may not still contain tripwires and bandits, and even if he hadn't needed any help James still would have come - but it seems to amuse Oz, who rewards James with the barest, deflated laugh.

"I certainly do," he says. "I don't know how to get back to town."

James realizes that his hands are full of Ozpin and empty of the map. They've been empty of the map, in fact, since he was shot at. "Hm," James says.

"Oh no," Ozpin says.

"We can figure it out," James says. "There's something that… probably, we can do." He sighs, and mutters, "Ah, fuck."

Ozpin's eyebrows lift. "When I was still in town, you were… James, you're drunk." It's not an accusation or exclamation, just a realization, a chain of thought verbalized. "You came out here drunk. For me."

There's no real point in denying it, even if James were the type to lie about this. He's become slowly more clearheaded the longer he's been out here and awake, but he still wouldn't consider himself _sober_. "I'd already come back from the bar when I found out you were gone," James says. "So. Yeah."

"That's terribly noble of you," Ozpin says. His eyebrows, still lifted, pinch together. "And… very, very dangerous."

Like he has room to criticise. If James hadn't come along, Ozpin was going to try taking this two-person mission on himself. And though he is, in fact, two people and more, the mission suggestion definitely meant two people in _separate_ bodies. "How out of character," James deadpans, electing not to open that kind of argument.

Ozpin giggles. "You are the very model of a chivalrous knight errant," he says. Then he reaches up and pats James' cheek with his too-warm hand.

His too-warm hand, too-warm arms, his wide pupils, the fact that his Aura has to be going _somewhere_ if it's not healing his nose...

James has an awful suspicion.

"You fell," he said.

"I think," Ozpin says.

"You were knocked unconscious?"

Ozpin frowns, squinting in thought. He doesn't have his glasses on. Obvious in retrospect, but James hadn't actually processed that fact until now. "Presumably. I wouldn't know, I wasn't awake."

"Ozpin," James says.

"James," Ozpin says fondly, nestling closer.

"Were you drugged?"

Ozpin blinks. He gives it some thought. "You know," he says cheerfully, "I think I was!"

Fantastic.

It explains how Ozpin was captured, at least. Caught unaware by some fast-acting drug, all his captors would have to do was drag his unconscious body into the woods. Nothing special. Just dumb circumstance.

Ozpin should be able to clear the drug eventually, but Aura doesn't really work well on toxins. You can't use it to get rid of a drug or poison that's already had time to work. The best thing it can do is hold off worse symptoms.

"You're handsome," Ozpin says. He smiles. "You have a very heroic jaw line."

James dearly hopes that he, at least, remembers everything Ozpin says, so he can repeat it back later and see if it makes Ozpin blush. A heroic jaw line. Absurd. It's definitely not making _James_ blush, or affecting him at all. "I am going to remind you of what you said," James says, "and you will regret it."

"I will not," Ozpin says, offended. "I am... _very_ queer."

James makes a strangled sound.

He's saved by a rising tide of noise, the roar of an approaching gust of wind. As it rattles the trees, drawing closer to the crater, James sinks down on his heels and braces himself. He's already between where the wind is coming from and Ozpin. All James has to worry about is not getting bowled over on top of the other man. He's not coordinated enough right now to be sure of catching himself, and he's sure Ozpin's not coordinated enough right now to catch him.

The wind slams into James with a force that's half physical pressure and half stinging cold. He can hear the dirt and rocks shifting in time with the clatter of branches, and, carried on the wind, the faint howl of a Beowolf.

Great. That's just what they need.

"Ozpin," James says, when the wind has passed enough that it won't steal their voices.

"I heard it," Ozpin says.

"We have to move," James says. "Can you stand?"

"Mmmmaybe?" Ozpin says, drawing the word out with an utter lack of conviction. "Maybe," he says, more firmly. "I suppose I have to, don't I?" He tries to heave himself up so suddenly that it takes James a moment to catch up and help push Ozpin into a standing position. Ozpin has both hands on his cane, the tightness of his grip evident in the harsh shadows of his joints and tendons. But he's upright. James stands too, though the ground seems to warp around him. It's not. He knows it's not. That doesn't make it easier to keep his footing.

"I came from… that way," James says, pointing to the mouth of the ex-ravine. A weaker, but still cold, wind yanks at James' hair, and he remembers that he was going to give Ozpin his jacket. "Hold on," he says, and shrugs it off, then drapes it over Ozpin's shoulders. Ozpin fits his arms into the sleeves and rubs his cheek into the collar absently.

Maybe it's a little absurd to feel so viciously protective of an ancient, immortal being with unfathomable power. But maybe not, given that the ancient, immortal being with unfathomable power is fucking precious.

James drags himself back into the moment. The moment where they are trying to leave the forest. "It wasn't a straight shot from town, though." 

"It's as good a start as any," says Ozpin, and begins to walk forward unsteadily. He's limping pretty badly in addition to the wobbliness imparted by the drugs. Collapsing, then getting transported into the forest somehow and being restrained had clearly done his legs no favors. James knows from experience that Ozpin can function through a great deal of pain. James also knows from experience that it is much, much harder to balance when hit with a double blow of intoxication and a bad pain episode. And there's no guarantee the drug isn't causing pain too - fast-acting knockout drugs aren't exactly designed with comfort in mind.

Ozpin is heavier than he looks and as tall as James, but James knows he's capable of lifting Ozpin if the situation calls for it. Also sometimes when the situation doesn't, but that's not relevant. He's less sure whether he can carry Ozpin and run through the forest, drunk, fast enough to keep ahead of however many Grimm have gotten lured by a blast of human misery. Sooner or later, they’re probably going to have to stop and fight. Unless they get really lucky and any fleeing bandits lead all the Grimm away, but James doesn't share Ozpin's strange and somewhat fatalistic faith in providence. You can't base any kind of viable strategy on luck. It's better to be so thoroughly prepared that luck becomes meaningless, or, if that's not an option, flexible enough to come up with a workable plan in response to changing scenarios.

Ozpin is managing for now. James will reassess when necessary. He half-jogs to catch up, then slows his pace considerably.

"How are you feeling?" James asks. 

"My nose hurts," Ozpin says. "But I find that doesn't bother me very much, so maybe the drugs are good for something."

James doesn't want to squelch Ozpin's attempt at optimism by pointing out that if it weren't for the drugs, Ozpin would be able to bring all of his Aura to bear on his nose and it would be healed in a span of seconds. So instead he says, "I'm glad you're having fun."

"Yes, it's such a lovely night for a stroll," Ozpin says, barely managing to maintain a serious tone throughout the whole sentence before he lets out a snort of laughter. The wince that follows indicates that his nose really isn't in a condition for that. James pats his shoulder.

They walk in silence for a little longer. James manages to spot a broken branch, then another, evidence of his passage through the woods. "This way," he tells Ozpin.

Ozpin eyes the branches, then James. "Trying a second career as a woodcutter, James?" he asks.

"At this point, I think that would be my fourth or fifth career," James says. Ozpin laughs.

Slightly deeper into the woods, Ozpin says, "I am serious, though. About feelings."

"Is that so," James says neutrally. He feels like they should have passed one of the bodies of the bandits he killed by now, and the fact that they haven't suggests they’ve managed to curve in a different direction accidentally. Not that the bodies would have been very useful landmarks, but it would have at least indicated that James and Ozpin were capable of walking in a straight line, which they apparently are not.

Beside him, Ozpin is still talking, one hand on his cane, the other gesturing emphatically. At times, his fingers curl inwards around nothing, and James can easily picture a mug in his hand. "I wouldn't want you to think it's just the drugs. I find you extraordinarily compelling."

He sounds so earnest that it makes James want to laugh almost as much as he wants to match Ozpin's seriousness. "I also find you compelling, Ozpin." If he's remembering the map right, then the marked destination, the ravine, was to the northwest of town. So if he goes off at an angle to the moon, which has by now passed the center of the sky, it should be the right general direction. It will take him through an area of the wood he hasn't been through before, but it's not like any part of this place is actually familiar to him.

"I think about you a _lot_ ," Ozpin continues. "And, and I treasure our time together, even when it's cold and I'm drugged and you're lost."

"You're lost too," James says. He bends a branch up and out of the way, and Ozpin ducks under it. This leaves him slightly ahead of James, but since he's not actually leading and is still following James' choices of direction, it's fine.

"That is very much not my fault. The point is," Ozpin says doggedly, "I care about you, and think you are a good person who I respect very much, and if you are amenable I would like to kiss sometime when there are not consent issues related to impaired judgement. I thought you should know that. And that I don't expect anything from you that you aren't comfortable with."

"Oz," James says. "You do remember we've been together for _years_ , right?"

Ozpin pauses. "Yessss," he says, and James is _deeply_ unconvinced.

"I respect and care about you too," James says. "We can kiss at a later date."

"That's all I want," Ozpin says, and he sounds like he means it.

They hear a Beowolf howl again. This time there's no wind to carry it from far away.

"Damn," James says.

"I can't imagine what it wants," Ozpin says. "I am," he spins with a flourish, using his cane to pivot, "very happy."

… oh, this is going to go badly.

"I don't think you're safe for combat," James says.

"Beggars, James, cannot be choosers," Ozpin says, slurring the last word slightly. He flicks his fingers, and a green flame lights in his palm.

James frowns at him. Ozpin does _not_ have the magic for sustained fights. It's a supplemental weapon, and one of last resort at that. But between the pain and reduced coordination, the Long Memory isn't a very practical weapon either. Ozpin needs it to stand.

James will just have to make sure this ends fast.

If they were smart, they might have stayed at the crater and waited for the Grimm to come to them. The sightlines would be better. But even in the deeper part of the woods, the trees are sparse, and James would have to be much more inebriated to miss a Beowolf on a night where the moon is out. Being slightly behind Ozpin means he's now slightly ahead when they turn to the direction the howling came from. That's exactly how James wants it.

"We stay quiet," he says, not out of any hope that _quiet_ will in any way keep Grimm from going after Ozpin, but because maybe if Ozpin is focused on being _quiet_ he won't do something likely to end badly, like make another explosion. "Wait for them to get closer, so we know what we're dealing with."

Ozpin closes his hand and extinguishes the flame. "How close?"

There's a flash of white, just barely past the point where the total number of trees finally compensates for the relative lack of density and hides everything beyond. Moonlight off a Beowolf's mask.

"Closer than that," James says. "But not by much."

Two separate white flashes. Three. Four. By the sixth James is beginning to have some serious concerns. It's only Beowolves, but…

There are eight total. They move slowly, fanning out through the forest, and James isn't sure if they're still searching for their prey or surrounding it. This is a complication. James can fight eight Beowolves. James probably cannot fight eight Beowolves _and_ do it fast enough and keep them far enough away that Ozpin will not also try to fight them.

His Aura will have been slowly depleting trying to fight off the drug. It's only going to get lower. James doesn't know how many hits Ozpin can take before his Aura breaks, or if he even has enough to effectively shield at all. And Ozpin is definitely not going to just not fight, no matter what kind of Command Voice James uses to demand it. A good leader doesn't give orders he knows won't be followed, but damn if James doesn't wish he could make Ozpin follow this one.

Maybe he should have a little more faith in the other man, who has more combat experience than any person alive except one (and whether she counts as a 'person' depends on your definition of the word). Maybe he _would_ , if Ozpin weren't swaying and quietly humming a sugary pop song.

A low snarl ripples through the forest. Ozpin stops humming, cocks his head, and says, "Are they close enough?"

"Yeah," James says. A half-circle of white masks approaches, close enough now that James can occasionally see a red eye flash. They're definitely not searching. They know exactly where Ozpin and James are.

"Right," Ozpin says, and swings his cane around, adjusting his grip so it rests in one hand like a sword. "Four each? You on the left, me on the right."

James feels the hairs along the back of his neck rise as the air becomes suffused with a heavy, electric potential, and he realizes he may need to reassess his beliefs about Ozpin's current abilities. "That works," he says, and levels Due Process at the Beowolf he has the clearest shot at.

James has seen Ozpin fight. Obviously. This mission wasn't their first by any means, of _course_ he's seen Ozpin fight. But he never…

He never had a sense of how much Ozpin usually _holds back_. He'd never imagined. Because if this is how Ozpin fights in the state he's in, what could he do at full capacity?

James moves fast enough that he manages to take down his first Beowolf with a single headshot. This triggers the rest to start rushing in, down on all fours and darting through the trees. He stays steady and switches to firing at limbs and backs, staggering them, making it so they can't all converge on him at once, a more viable strategy than waiting for clear kill shots and getting rushed.

Ozpin moves faster.

Green afterimages streak behind him as he runs straight at the Beowolves, so quickly even they seem startled. Then he drives his cane forward like the sword it's not, and it punches straight through a Beowolf's throat. Ozpin's already moved on before it even starts dissolving. The next one manages to raise an arm, aiming a downswing at Ozpin's head, but he blocks its claws with his cane in a fluid, easy motion, getting under the Beowolf's guard. Then, in a move that should be impossible and would have been for anyone without a weapon that warps time, he rotates his hand, draws his arm back, and shoves the Long Memory up and under where the ribcage would be on a real animal.

James gets a clear shot at another Beowolf's head and almost forgets to fire, as focused as he is on Ozpin. Part of him is watching because he needs to make sure if something goes wrong he can jump in, but another part of him is watching because he is utterly transfixed. He has to pull his attention away when one of his two remaining Beowolves elects to try closing the distance between itself and James by leaping right at him.

James rushes forward and ducks at the same time, leaving the Beowolf sailing over his head. He litters its underbelly with bullets, but that's not quite enough. It lands smoking but mostly intact. "Fine," James says. He flips one of his guns around so he can use the grip as a bludgeon, and sets to work doing exactly that.

The last of his targets hangs back, something in its alien awareness telling it that perhaps it should reconsider a direct approach, James glances over to Ozpin and sees him standing atop a fallen Beowolf - the final one, apparently, no others being evident - with his cane buried in its chest. The green flickers around him provide enough light that James can clearly see the black flakes rising as the Grimm begins to dissolve. And the blood leaking from the claw wounds in Ozpin's shoulder.

The remaining Beowolf sees it too. It turns away from James and rushes towards Ozpin.

"Watch out!" James yells, already aiming, already cursing himself for not finishing the last fight faster. Ozpin looks up and sees the approaching Beowolf.

This time, James doesn't even see him move. There's just an arc of green, and then Ozpin's cane is speared through the Beowolf's open mouth and jutting out the back of its head.

The Beowolf takes a few more shuddering steps forward, sliding grotesquely down the body of the cane. But before it can reach the handle, it stills, and begins to evaporate.

"Well," Ozpin says. "This has been an exciting night." His tone is an approximation of casual, but he's breathing hard, and the unsteady way he pulls the Long Memory out of what remains of the Beowolf stands in sharp contrast to the grace of his earlier movements. James thinks he should probably get over there quickly, because Ozpin looks close to collapsing again. He holsters Due Process on the way. When he's gotten closer, Ozpin closes the distance with a few off-balance steps and leans against James' chest, resting his head on James' shoulder.

"I may have overdone it," Ozpin says. James can feel Ozpin's breath on his neck and Ozpin's heartbeat against his own chest, both far too fast. "Slightly."

"Just slightly?" James asks. He rubs Ozpin's back in gentle circles, one of the fastest ways he knows to help the other man calm down. It works for panic attacks. The same principle may apply. He has to be careful of Ozpin's shoulder, but they seem to be superficial gashes, which is… as reassuring as it can be. James was right, Ozpin didn't have enough Aura to shield properly. Enough Aura to shield _somewhat_ , or the wounds would have been much, much deeper, but not enough to deflect the claws entirely. James is doubly glad he gave Ozpin his jacket, which is far more reinforced than Ozpin's shirt.

But James didn't think to bring first aid supplies, and he hopes they're close to town. Ordinarily, injuries like this wouldn't be a great cause for concern. Ordinarily, Ozpin wouldn't be dangerously low on Aura and drugged with whatever garbage the bandits cooked up, which could be doing any number of things to his clotting, blood flow, heart rate, Aura… who knows what else. There is nothing ordinary about this situation.

"Jussst slightly," Ozpin replies. "You liked it."

James snorts and rolls his eyes fondly, like acting indulgent will cover the fact that Ozpin is absolutely and completely correct. This is not anything he needs to encourage, in Ozpin _or_ himself. While being a Huntsman certainly provides him plenty of material for his adrenaline junkie tendencies and his thing for dangerous men, that's not actually the point of the career. "I'd _like_ to get back to town safely." Ozpin is beginning to relax against James, and his heart rate, at least, seems somewhat slower. The blood on his shirt is turning tacky and the flow is lessening, in a healing way rather than a running-out-of-blood way. Ozpin is still not entirely out of Aura. Good.

"And now we can," Ozpin says. "No more Grimm. Poof." He sighs, and leans into James even more heavily.

"Can you walk?" James asks.

Ozpin leans back and squints at James in the blurry moonlight. "I have to walk. You," he pokes James in the chest with a poorly-aimed finger, "are drunk."

"Not very," James says, and it's true. He wasn't that drunk when he went to sleep, and between the few hours of sleep he got, coming out here in the cold, and fighting Grimm, he is reasonably sober. He is certainly much more sober than Ozpin, who is swaying and closing his eyes too often and for too long. "I think you're worse off."

Ozpin stops swaying, and looks down at himself critically. "Hm. You have a point." He looks back up, and smiles. "You… are handsome."

"You are drugged," James replies evenly.

"I'm drugged and you're handsome," Ozpin agrees. He points to something behind James. "What's that?"

James turns, ready to see something unwanted and dangerous - an escaped bandit, a ninth Beowolf, a spontaneous forest fire - but instead he sees a crooked slash in the bark of a tree. One of the marks he made. He was slashing with his left hand, up to down, which means the direction he was coming from…

"This way," James says. He wraps an arm around Ozpin's torso, not entirely holding him up but definitely supporting him, and they begin to walk.

The sky is a muted gray when they arrive back in town, and a few people are on the streets still. There's some concern among them when they spot James and Ozpin and, specifically, all the blood on Ozpin, but people who panic easily don't last long outside the kingdoms. Some of them continue about their business while others approach and offer help. None of them are medics, but one goes to wake a medic while James takes Ozpin back to the inn. The wounds need stitches. Stitches can happen anywhere, and Ozpin also needs to sit down and get cleaned up and _rest_.

They make it to the room with a minimum of fuss. Ozpin has been pressing more and more against James, and James is, in fact, basically carrying him by the time they cross the threshold. He settles Ozpin on the bed and goes to wet a towel to wash the crusted remains of the nosebleed off Ozpin's face. When he returns, Ozpin is listing heavily, eyes closed and mouth open. Judging by the slow, deep breathing, he's asleep.

He'll have to wake up for the stitches. He can't be anesthetized for them, not with an unknown drug in his system, and he definitely won't sleep through getting them, so it's better to have him conscious beforehand. But James hesitates.

He had been worried. He hadn't really let himself acknowledge how worried he was. So of course it's sinking in now, the fact that this could have gone wrong in so many ways.

Hunting is dangerous. So is Ozpin. But all it takes is one bad day, one series of cascading wrongs, and…

James hates losing people. Anyone. Losing Ozpin, he thinks, would hurt in ways he can't even imagine.

James sits down beside Ozpin, and decides to let him sleep until the medic arrives.

**Author's Note:**

> obviously the author is dead and you can think what you want but just in case you were wondering, in my mind, oz is humming a song by remnant carly rae jepsen.


End file.
